There is nothing more 70s than a insanely grainy jittery shots accompanied by a weird romantic ballad that seems to be written for the movie, but has nothing to do with it. Bog doesn’t fail to deliver that combo. The title song is Walk With Me sung by Pat Hopkins. Neither the song nor Pat are on Spotify. The grain is presumably by a nuclear bomb testing facility located nearby the shooting area.
A pair of middle-aged couples go fishing at a lake and/or bog and are attacked, leaving the two women dead. The local authorities are baffled by what killed them, but it wasn’t human. It drained them of blood, but how and why? The husbands aren’t allowed to see their bodies, but they know they want to kill whatever killed their wives, so naturally they buy firearms from a hillbilly. The hillbilly also gives them access to a swamp hag who tells them that the creature that killed their wives is an ancient evil being.
Although it was filmed in 1978, Bog could easily have been made in black and white in 1954. It has all the hallmarks of a 50s creature feature. Authorities discussing things at length in one room, science people discussing things at length in a laboratory, small town police officers driving and looking at things, actors that are a few decades older than their characters, prolonged “character exploring” scenes, lack of actual scenes featuring the monster, and, of course, the monster being a straight up dude in a rubber suit.
There is also a romantic subplot featuring people in their 70s who do a lot more kissing than one would expect. The same old lady is featured in another romantic subplot with the monster.
It’s not a good film, but mildly entertaining, probably more so with a RiffTrax commentary over it—which I assume is available.
